Today Josh went to buy new blinds. Apparently our windows are weird and he was gonna need me to be there to pick them out(I was babysitting for a friend) so he came home with no blinds.

Two hours later we went back to Lowes and Home Depot thinking we were gonna have to settle for vertical blinds for my giant living room window because the horizontal wood slat blinds I wanted were gonna stick out too far.

But wait, I found some that were only 1 inch wide instead of the standard 2 inch!

Oh, those only come in white, I wanted brown. Dang!

Oh you can special order them in lots of colors?! Hooray!

Special order blinds will cost $250 for the one window!!??!! Dag nabit!

Maybe Home Depot will have something else.....

Less colors? More expensive? I think I'll pass on the blinds idea thanks.

Lets go to the pet store. The dogs need new collars, they look like hobos.

Yes, that is the collar we are looking for, oh you are out of stock. Figures.

We got home very frustrated, took a little nap, and regrouped. We decided to broaden our horizons, we were making things too hard. We can deal with the blinds sticking out a little bit, and Josh is brilliant so he figured out a way he could make them pretty. We grabbed the dogs, measured the windows ONE MORE TIME and headed back out.

And came home with these!

Gorgeous, perfect new blinds!

They are actually the exact same color at the wall directly across the room. I couldn't have made them match my room more perfectly-and they were the in stock, generic dark color model. (we got white ones for the two windows in the kitchen too but they aren't up yet)

Then we headed back to the pet store for those new dog collars.

I can not even get over how handsome my boys are! Pike has always had red collars, his first nice leather collar was kind of a deep maroon with studs and we loved that on him but this looks so good! And this is Romans first "grown up"﻿ fancy leather collar, I have always had him in black and gray collars so the green is a HUGE change. The funny part about it is that if you swap the colors on the dogs, they look terrible! Roman is just enough darker than Pike that this green looks awesome and the blue looks weird and the reverse is true for Pike, the green is totally lost on him! Yes I am a crazy lady but my boys look GOOD.

So the lesson for today: Stop trying to be so in control that you aren't open to new ideas and other options. Take some time to just let things be and be open to them and things may turn out better than you imagined.

AND since I am sure you are all dying to see her.....

Zoey Cecelia

Cutest ever right? YES!
She has red red hair and I get to meet her tomorrow!

They won't send me a picture of her (like they need sleep or something sheesh!) so I am starting to not believe them, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer and like me, you will just have to imagine what a beautiful little thing could come from these two

Warning: There will be pictures of guts- no blood, just guts. If you turn back now I will not be offended.

In July, Josh and I took a trip to the emergency room. I had been having some pretty annoying pains low in my abdomen and my monthly visit from mother nature was suspiciously late. Pregnancy test was negative but I wasn't convinced everything was ok and since my IUD creates a higher risk for ectopic pregnancy I decided it would be best to go see a Dr. They did another pregnancy test -negative again- and told me I was probably just crazy but to come back for an ultrasound anyway. The next day on the ultrasound they found a cyst on my right ovary. Yay for not being crazy! but yuck!

They said it was not big enough to worry about, only about the size of a racquet ball.

Which, ps, is about this big

(ok a little smaller but my picture grew and I am tired of fighting it. Ultimately it ended up this big though)

They told me it would probably go away all on its own or rupture.

Long story short, 7 months later, neither of those things happened. At my ultrasound in January they found that the cyst was still there and even a little bigger, but they didn't think it was actually on my ovary. I was referred to an ob/gyn who saw me for approximately 2 minutes before my surgery was scheduled.

One week later (one week ago) I found myself back with the same ob/gyn for another 2 minutes before they whisked me off to surgery.

What they found what a little surprising.

GUTS ALERT!

TWO separate cysts one on top of the other

For a point of reference (I know you wanted one really bad):

This white blob is my happy healthy left ovary!

These are my cysts!

The top white blob is actually my right ovary, sick and sad and growing a cyst inside.

The bottom blob is the yucky other cyst. The tubey looking thing between them is my fallopian tube.

Better picture of cyst 2 (because again, I knew you desperately needed to see it)

That blue circle picture at the top is about how big they BOTH were.

OK Enough guts

Remember when my Dr told me they weren't sure what the cyst was on, well apparently it was cyst 2 that they kept finding on the ultrasounds (they had no clue the one in my ovary was even there-little disconcerting-but more on that in a sec) It is NOT an ovarian cyst. It is a paratubual cyst. It was growing on my fallopian tube. The good news is that we decided to take it out before it had a chance to twist on itself. If it had, it could have damaged or even cut of the blood supply and killed my fallopian tube and even my ovary. So, dodged a bullet, just in case we ever decide to try and utilize those organs for their intended purpose.

The other good news about this yucky cyst is that it was probably formed from some extra cells that never turned into anything when I was growing into a human in utero-which means now that it is gone there is almost no likelihood of it returning. YAY!

The cyst that was actually in my ovary was a bit of a different story. It was still benign (hooray!) but they weren't able to remove it entirely. They drained it but couldn't remove the cyst tissue from inside my ovary without causing more damage than necessary. Also, because cysts form normally every month in your ovaries and this was just one that got carried away, they had no idea how long it was growing and, no way to know if another would grow in its place.

The only way to prevent/manage them is with hormones (birth control pills) and that just isn't an option for this girl.

If you want to know about me getting my life back after the birth control hormones check out my other blog here

So here we are, healing from surgery, glad to be rid of the two yucky impostors and hoping that they never decide to come back.

I seem to do all of my best thinking when I am supposed to be sleeping so tonight I figured I would let some of the thoughts out of the cage of my mind

and maybe that will reduce the rattling enough for me to sleep.

We shall see.

This new year has me, like most of you, considering a lot of things:

all of the events of the previous year, how life has changed,

how life may change in the coming year,

and how long I can feign control over those changes this year.

As for what this new year will bring and how much of it I get to control, I have no idea

but I can say without a doubt that this past year has brought the highest highs and lowest lows of our married life (and that is saying something-we have been through some MAJOR stuff in the almost 3 years we have been married).

I won't bore you with the lows, if you don't already know, you don't need to.

But I do want to share at least the 3 HUGE things that came into our lives this year and have changed them forever.

The first to happen was the biggest and most influential.

We bought our first home!

We had been looking for a house since January and found this one the end of February. Getting into it was the biggest pain and biggest miracle of my entire life. We finally closed the very end of April. The first full day that we spent in it was our second anniversary. What a gift huh!

We love so much having our own home. It helps me to feel so much more grounded and stable and gives Josh a source of never ending projects. We have done so much work on it

(it needed a LOT)

and it is really coming along. I think it is one of the most beautiful, comfortable homes I have ever been in.

The second life changing thing to come to our lives, kind of came as a result of the house:

We got a kid!

My 17 year old brother to be exact.

Little Brother came to stay with us for the summer to help Josh work on the house. All summer long they worked outside, tearing off the old siding and putting up my pretty new siding, and inside, ripping up flooring and putting in beautiful tile and knocking out walls to give me another closet. We were very grateful for the extra hands even if getting work out of them took a little more prodding than anticipated.

We did decide however, that once the summer was over we were going to let Little Brother stay with us and go to school here. It is his senior year and he desperately wanted the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities that his high school in Tiny Town just couldn't provide.

So we have a kid, a teenger, and everything that goes with it, dances, driving lessons, girlfriends, band and choir concerts, ACTs, college applications, job applications, cooking lessons.

It is quite the adventure.

It has really helped us appreciate our time alone more and for that I am grateful, but I am also very grateful that we have the means and opportunity to help Little Brother get off to a more successful start in adulthood.

The last big change that came to our little family was Roman.

We love this little pup with all our hearts! He is so very different from his daddy, which can be so very frustrating at times, but we try to remind ourselves that Pike was not normal and this is what we should have expected from a boxer pup.

Pike and Roman are the very best of friends.

They are constantly together and cry if they are ever separated

(heaven forbid we should try to bathe them one at a time!)

It is so fun to watch them both especially now that Roman is big enough that Pike can play with him without worrying about hurting him.

He adds such a different dynamic to our family, it is so wonderful. I really can't imagine not having him now that we do-even if he does still chew very important things....

What a blessed year we have had!

There were a lot of struggles, tons of tears

and infinite desperate pleas to a wonderfully benovelent

Father in Heaven

(even if his timline and mine we really need to get in sync)

And if we came out of 2010 a little beaten, a little bruised, and a lot more humble,

I think we came out on top in the end.

Here is to the hope that we can retain the humility, peace, and gratitude well into

My puppies are my babies. They are the most spoiled rotten things you will ever meet and I love them more than anything. This is why when I came home from church yesterday expecting to be greeted by this little face...........

And found this one instead

I was more than a little concerned. My poor little baby looked like he had gone 10 rounds. After noticing the irony of my boxer puppy looking like he had just gotten out of the ring I called the vet.

As per the doctors orders I gave him a little Benadryl and some baby Tylenol and things started to get better. The swelling was going down and he seemed to be acting ok.

Enter next super stress. After two hours the swelling came back! I couldn't give him more drugs so I gave him a bath hoping that I could wash off whatever was causing this problem. After both Roman and Pike got baths things started to look up again. I stopped worrying and just let them play in the house for the rest of the day.

Again I though we were in the clear so didn't think anything of putting them out to go potty before bed. Bad plan. Pups were out for 5 minutes and when Roman came back in the other eye was starting to swell and he had HIVES!

We guessed that they had played in the old carpet pad we had just pulled out of the house and that is sitting on the trailer in the backyard waiting to go to the dump and that Roman was having an allergic reaction to something in or on it so they spent the day in the front yard today (they are primarily inside dogs but we are doing some crazy remodeling in the house and didn't want to be tripping on them) But I can't win I swear! Roman walked in this evening covered again in HIVES. He has been bathed twice in the last 24 hours, he has gotten Benadryl every 8 hours like the Dr said and he has on a different collar just in case the other one had something on it. I don't know what he is allergic to and I am freaking out!

Some of you know that Josh and I bought a house in April. It is a lovely little house and one day I will actually take and post pictures of everything. However, today I just wanted to say that my entire upstairs is in chaos because my husband is laying tile in our dining area so that we can carpet the rest next week! How I do love my husband and how handy he is (and how BEAUTIFUL my little house is becoming!)

For some time now I have been considering creating a blog dedicated to my joys and struggles as I try to live a "normal" life while dealing with severe depression. For some reason, today was the day for that to start, so check it out if you want or don't.

topsyturveymind.blogspot.com

It will be very open and honest and I am really excited about having a space to get things out of my head and maybe help others struggling with the same things have a safe place to talk about how they are feeling.

This blog will remain to talk about the random goings on of my family.

I sit at work and listen to the classic rock station that is a popular workplace radio station here in southern idaho and I have come to a frustrating conclusion. Many people in the generation before mine (not all) have a big problem with a lot of the popular music of today because of its racy lyrics and sexual inuendo. NEWSFLASH: listen to the lyrics of the music you deem, apropriate although it may not have the beat and synthesizers that our music does, a lot of it doesn't have squeaky clean lyrics either.

Case in point- the song that was just on - that my 50 yr old office manager, who does happen to have a huge problem with popular music, was just singing along too-

Close your eyes, make a wish
And blow out the candlelight
For tonight is just your night
We're gonna celebrate, all thru the night
Pour the wine, light the fire
Girl your wish is my command
I submit to your demands
I'll do anything, girl you need only ask

Chorus:
I'll make love to you
Like you want me to
And I'll hold you tight
Baby all through the nightI'll make love to you
When you want me to
And I will not let go
Till you tell me to

Girl relax, let's go slow
I ain't got nowhere to go
I'm just gonna concentrate on you
Girl are you ready, it's gonna be a long nightThrow your clothes on the floor
I'm gonna take my clothes off tooI made plans to be with you
Girl whatever you ask me you know I'll do

Chorus

Baby tonight is your night
And I will do you right
Just make a wish on your night
Anything that you ask
I will give you the love of your life

No sexual subject matter there at all... Double standards and hypocrites bug me.

The last few weeks have been quite adventurous for us. We have had lots of family come visit, finished the work on the outside of the house and Roman and I took a trip to visit Thor in Pheonix!

It was quite the trip and Roman did such a good job in the car for basically 6 days and almost melted in the Pheonix heat (there was of course an excessive heat advisory while we were down there) but ultimately survived and made lots of new friends all along the way.

We had so much fun with our friends and family. Thanks Hunter, Thor and Toni for letting us play! We love you guys!

PS. if you are in the Mesa area this weekend go check out the musical Curtains at MCC. My big brother is the "assistant" director and has worked so hard for the last few months. The show is amazing!